Dorkingian

Royal Visit Yesterday the DGR was honoured to host the inaugural run of Julian's newly acquired King William IV, which is certainly a majestic piece of machinery. This picture shows the detail treatment even includes differential painting on the handrail. In the twilight of their careers the Kings were allocated to secondary duties, such as this milk train seen in the West Midlands: Whereas we all know that such powerful engines and their crews were happiest in the 1950s or earlier, dealing with 'proper' trains like this West Country express: After being flush with royalty, it's only fitting to feature another class with regal connections, the Jubilees. Here is 45611 "Hong Kong" taking a passenger train towards Sycamore Curve: And later with a parcels train in dappled sunshine, loping across Foxdale Bank: Finally seen passing that much-photographed spot, the Foxdale Bank signal:

Some photos here may be of interest: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/84103-dorking-garden-railway-videos-in-00-scale/?p=3207890

Some photos here may be of interest: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/84103-dorking-garden-railway-videos-in-00-scale/?p=3207890

Southern electrics in the Home Counties For a change, this week's visitors were a multitude of emus and Class 73s, adding unusual colour to the layout. The striking Network SouthEast livery always looked good against a background of high summer greenery: These 4TC sets ran on the Waterloo-Weymouth services and were hauled by a 4REP unit or a diesel or electro-diesel loco (or, very occasionally, two): These 4CEP units (also Class 411) ran on services to Portsmouth: One Class 73 ran in Pullman livery from 1992 onwards. Here is "The Royal Alex" heading an excursion train of Pullman stock: After so much activity, a bit of track maintenance is always a good idea:

Thanks for that, Andy. The great advantage of a garden railway, for me at least, is that most of the scenery is there already so no time is spent in creating a suitable backdrop. The downside is that the layout can't be taken to exhibitions!

A pleasant afternoon in middle England Yesterday was a good day for running trains, dry but not sunny. Had to deal with plenty of bird poo before trains could run, and there were lots of insects risking their lives by trespassing on the railway, as well as several of those snails. The scene was 1950s Stanier territory, which allows for a lot of locations (although the regional prefix of the first passenger coach is "Sc"). A Jubilee romps across Foxdale Bank with her passenger train... ...before setting out across the Northern Viaduct... ...and passing a goods train waiting at Throstlebeck Sidings: The Black 5 takes its train out onto the main line... ...and heads round Sycamore Curve, where the occupants of Sycamore Cottage enjoy a great view of passing trains... ...after which the train's slow progress across Foxdale Bank gives the crew plenty of time to enjoy the lush summer vegetation. No danger of starting lineside fires here:

As an afterthought: Black 5 and crew heading home

The West Highland Line These pictures try to evoke this sinuous route from Glasgow to the Western Isles. Early one morning a Black 5 in charge of a heavy train, including a portion from London with sleeping cars for Fort William, runs through the Glasgow suburbs. Here the train is running out towards the hills...  Later, the same loco works back from Fort William with a parcels train:    And on a summer evening we catch the return working of the London sleepers passing McGonagall Junction: ...before heading off towards Glasgow and the south:

We now move to the Newcastle to Carlisle route. The first few pictures show a 9F arriving light engine at Throstlebeck Sidings and then paused to await its turn of duty, while a local passenger train passes on the main line: The following photos show the Black 5 hauled local train on Bamboo Curtain Straight, then the Northern Viaduct, Foxdale Bank and finally onto Sycamore Curve. Sharp eyes will spot the snail. These and bigger ones can cause derailments... Well, it is meant to be a garden railway... The timber trackbed is looking a bit the worse for wear:

The Central Wales Line Here are some photos from one summer in the 1950s. In the first set, a Black 5 heads a Shrewsbury to Swansea (Victoria) train: Compare the well-established vegetation in this shot with that in the video taken five years earlier (with the same rake of coaches): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aos1UxK8-sU Then the Swansea train is seen passing Foxdale Manor... Elsewhere on the Central Wales Line we find the Black 5 with ECS in the headshunt on Sycamore Curve while a southbound freight rattles past behind a Standard Class 4: Then the goods train heads off across Foxdale Bank... ...before the photographer catches it again, this time on the Northern Viaduct:

That's a very nice video. Shows off the railway well. The plants are looking good at track level. Particularly liked the Class 56 and stone wagons - the different grades of stone are a nice touch. Well done all round.

It's raining today, and weather for the Easter weekend isn't looking promising...

Missing photos reinstated Apologies to anyone who's been wondering what had happened to some of the photos earlier in this thread which had disappeared. RMWeb Control may inadvertently have weeded them when trying to save disk space across the site. They should now all have been restored to the right positions. I hope you enjoy them.

It's good to see a standard gauge layout in this scale that looks really convincing, with nice rolling stock and scale length trains. The viaduct looks great - impressive concrete which is weathering nicely. We look forward to more photos. Have a good summer!

On a Southern byway Scenes from the snowy south yesterday here: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/84103-dorking-garden-railway-videos-in-00-scale/?p=3068433

On a Southern byway This was the scene yesterday as an N Class loco pulled its train through a light dusting of snow near Dorking:

All White on the Night Photos from another snowfall today are just here: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/84103-dorking-garden-railway-videos-in-00-scale/?p=3066227

All White on the Night Decent snow doesn't often come to the Dorking Highlands, so on a rare occasion such as today I put some rolling stock out for a photo-shoot before the sun managed to disperse most of the previous night's fall. First up was the BR Standard 2-6-4 tank on a train of coal empties: Then it was time for the Black 5 to come through with a train for Kyle of Lochalsh: After that the crew were happy to retreat indoors to get warm again.

The signals are freshly planted for each running session, but the telegraph poles stay out - and some suffer accordingly. Dunno if it's the birds or squirrels who attack them. After five years outside, some of the "creocoted" timber trackbase is deteriorating a bit at the edges, and/or warping. But it's so much easier to use, and has a nicer colour, than any other material. So any replacements will be two layers of screwed boards where possible. In the dry weather I should probably apply more creocote - probably best to keep it off the sleepers and rails as much as possible.

New Kid on the Block Yesterday saw the inaugural run of the recently acquired Black 5 loco. I modified it by replacing the tender drawbar with a shorter one. It's curious how Hornby issue an excellent model with such a non-scale gap between engine and tender - and no option for improvement apart from DIY. Anyway, the loco certainly looks good, and the TTS sound is fine even in the garden.

"Dabbling" obviously isn't the right word for a superb model railway like that. Outdoor buildings like those would be impressive in any scale, but in N they are heroic. Each to his own, but those photos should certainly give pause to those who seem to think that a garden is no place for the smaller scales.

My photos from the weekend's snow are just next door, here: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/84103-dorking-garden-railway-videos-in-00-scale/?p=3016159

Snow business In recent years we've not had any decent snow, that is the soft, dry, flaky stuff that stays around for a while and looks nice. Instead we've had one or two mornings of uninspiring wet snow which has disappeared by lunchtime. That happened at the weekend, when snow settled on some surfaces but not others - and not on the railway. So to get photos, I had to improvise some temporary track across snow on the lawn.

Searching for some photos to cheer up the wintry prospect, I came across these 1950s scenes from last September - a BR Standard 4MT loco on a goods train, and a Jubilee on a passenger train:

Earlier in the year I noticed that one of my Peco buffer stops had been vandalised: Not sure whether the culprit was a bird or a squirrel. I decided the solution lay in using a more robust product: So far, so good!